Chapter Text
When Adrian got the news that a ship using astrophage fuel was approaching Erid, they almost didn't believe it. It had been almost 600 years since they had last seen their mate. So much had happened since then, they wouldn't know where to start.
Well, that's an exaggeration. They would probably start with the existence of aliens. Not single-celled organisms, like the astrophage, but fully intelligent life-forms from other planets. This had barely been thought about by the time the Eridians had sent that ship to Tau Ceti, let alone considered a real possibility. Despite that, a mere 200 years later, first contact was made.
The Galactic Collective, as they called themselves, were a group of many different species of alien from the other side of the galaxy. Apparently, they had already been well-established for a while now, with most species being an active member for thousands of years. The only reason that Eridians hadn't gotten an offer to join sooner, they explained, was because they simply didn't think life could form on this side of the galaxy. In fact, intelligent life had only managed to form on two planets: Erid and Earth.
It came as a shock to Eridians that not only was other intelligent life feasible, but they had neighbors less than 20 light-years away. The first thing they wanted to do was to send a fleet over with peace offerings, establishing positive relations, but this was quickly shut down. Other than explaining the lack of life on this side, the alien representatives did not seem like talk or even mention of Earth. They also seemed confused about the plan, saying that they didn't think Erid had achieved space travel yet. It was explained that the Eridians had built a spaceship and sent it to Tau Ceti, which led to them explaining the astrophage, which led to them explaining the stars dying out.
The alien representatives sounded really distressed. Apparently, they hadn't known about the astrophage issue since it hadn't yet reached any of their solar systems. Adrian felt jealous that they hadn't had to send any of their mates on a dangerous mission to stop an extinction level event. The Collective, when their shock wore off, vowed to investigate this phenomena and help in any way they can. They also offered to look over the ship plans to see if there was any advice they could give for the next ship. As the mate of the main engineer and the lead designer, Adrian was happy to offer the plans to the more experienced space-farers in case they could give ideas of more efficient design choices or maybe catch some small miscalculations.
That is when Adrian's soul shattered into a million pieces.
Radiation is what the representatives called it, regret clear in their tones even through the translator. An invisible killer that was everywhere in space, and something that they had included absolutely no protection against. There was no way that any of the Eridians they sent up there were still alive. Adrian didn't want to believe it, but they had no choice. Rocky was dead.
Adrian fled the meeting room, leaving the other governmental Eridians to continue the conversation with the representatives. They got as far away as they could, til the voices were completely covered up by the thoughts in their head. The last conversation they ever had kept repeating in their brain over and over. Talks of their future together, of potential kids, of Rocky returning as a hero. Those will never come to pass. Because he was dead, along with everyone else on that ship, their empty shells floating somewhere in the silence of space.
Adrian pulled themself together as best they could. They were a part of the few Eridians representing their entire planet. They couldn't give a bad first impression, which meant they had to return to that meeting, and that they had to return as presentable as possible. They steeled their nerves and walked back to the room.
When they got back into hearing range, they discovered that the group had (luckily) changed topics. It seemed that they were back to discussing Earth, much to the dismay of the representatives. Adrian hurried back into the room, momentarily distracted by the very interesting topic. After much pushing about how Earth was reacting to the Collective and how peace talks are going with them, the representatives reluctantly admitted that there weren't peace talks or any sort of talks going on on Earth. And there were never going to be.
Humans, which is what the Earthlings called themselves, were a very unique species. Their planet is considered a death world by the Collective, with conditions that they never would have thought could result in intelligent life. Yet the humans not only live, but thrive in these conditions through adaptations that not only made them dangerous, but deadly. The few humans that were taken from Earth (not by the Collective, they frantically explained, but by criminals and traffickers) were always extremely violent and extremely effective in that violence. One of the representatives, who caught criminals as part of their duties in the Collective, recalled the multiple times that they had caught up to a trafficker's ship, only to find the whole crew dead and the human either dying of injuries that should have killed it long before, or missing from the ship entirely with an escape pod gone. They also formed extremely strong pack-bonds, with the most gruesome massacres missing two kidnappees instead of just the human.
The representatives didn't want to go into any more detail, but that was more than enough for the Eridians. With how hazardous space travel could be, they would not want to risk it on a species that could endanger them. The representatives looked relieved and happily changed topics to the important but more boring diplomat work of joining an agency with many other governments.
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It has been almost 400 years since then, and everything has been going smoothly. Peaceful relations have been established and their reputation with the wider community has been relatively positive. Eridians hadn't firmly established their space-faring program yet, and most aliens had a hard time visiting Erid due to the extreme heat, atmospheric pressure, and complete lack of light, but they still had visitors semi-frequently. That's why no one initially noticed anything wrong with the ship that the cameras alerted them to. That was until the camera described exactly what frequency the light coming out of the engines was. 25.984 microns. The exact frequency for astrophage.
The panic and excitement on the planet was immense. Adrian, who had lost hope many years ago, felt something spark to life in their carapace. But that spark quickly died once the ship got closer than the ship on the texture screen was significantly smaller than the ship that they had sent out. If Adrian had to guess, it just another alien spaceship coming to visit the planet. They hoped it wasn't another diplomat; they could not handle a meeting after feeling their soul getting sucked out of their body all over again.
But there was something weird about this ship. Adrian didn't recognize the style of ship at all, and most ships would have contacted Erid ahead of time to make sure that the space elevator was cleared for landing. Whoever this is, they were extremely lucky that there was no one else using the elevator currently and that the landing crew hadn't gone home for the day. This whole situation was very suspicious, so Adrian decided to make their way up to the top of the elevator so they could, at the very least, give this alien a piece of their mind about the safety rules on Erid. They put on their xenonite suit and made it up there just in time for the ship to land. It was always so weird seeing the ships land at the top of the elevator; since sound can't travel space, the ship is basically nonexistent to the Eridians until it touches down. Once it does, it's like a switch has been flipped, and they can immediately hear everything inside the ship.
That is why when the ship touches down, Adrian is immediately rushing over to the ship, the concoction of notes she's making completely unintelligible. Because there is an Eridian on that ship.
An extremely familiar one.
Rocky is on that ship.
In their complete shock, Adrian thinks they can be excused for missing another presence on that ship before they were almost pounding on the ship's door. But when they did notice, they froze in their tracks.
Bipedal. Almost completely organic. Two front-facing, predator-like light detectors. Descriptions flashed through their head, descriptions that are only known through dead bodies because no Galactic Collective agent would dare go near them alive.
It's a human.
Rocky is trapped in a ship with a human.